White Light, Black Rain

Liz and I watched White Light Black Rain, about survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, yesterday. This film is by Steven Okazaki, of Berkeley. As a Japanese-American, he is able to integrate elements of both cultures in his film-making that I haven't seen in other documentaries on this subject.
This is a hard film to watch, as Steve doesn't shy away from some of the difficult aspects of these attacks. The image of the man with his ribs showing between bedsore lesions still sits behind my eyes. The woman, who talked of her sister committing suicide, who said, "there are two kinds of courage, the courage to live and the courage to die", and noted, without judgment, both her and her sister's courage in their choices. It was perhaps the non-judgmental tone of these survivors that may be most bothersome to many who watched this film. I have been told that the people screening it at Sundance just sort of felt numbed, and came out of the theater without emotion.
This non-judgmental attitude seemed like the right thing to me. Perhaps it emerges from the strong Buddhist sensibility of many Japanese people. It may also come from that clarity that comes near the end of life, even one marked by loss and suffering, when one realizes that anger or self-pity no longer serves. This attitude of just being could be something to aspire to, but it is hard for me to imagine, as one who has not been tested like these survivors. And yet a deep compassion, an unexplainable humility, wells up in me as I hear their stories. I must balance the levels of stoicism and emotionality, to find the best possible life, even amidst great horror.